Wednesday, April 27, 2011

PRE-GAME: Game Four at MAINEiacs

LEWISTON, Me. – It’s do or die for the Lewiston Maineiacs tonight at Androscoggin Bank Colisee.

The Maineiacs are down three-games-to-none in their best-of-seven semifinal playoff series against the Saint John Sea Dogs. If they are unable to pull off a victory tonight, their season will come to an end.

Lewiston played well last night and had control of the game quite a bit. But when they gave the Sea Dogs chances, they would capitalize. When Lewiston had opportunities, goaltender Mathieu Corbeil was there to make the stop.

The Maineiacs have kept all of the games failry close despite Saint John being up 3-0. They blew a two-goal third period lead in Game One and fell in overtime. In Game Two, the Sea Dogs won the match thanks to a five-minute power play. Then in Game Three, a quick start in the second period was all Saint John would need.

In last night’s game, Jonathan Huberdeau, Tomas Jurco, Ryan Tesink, Mike Thomas, and Stanislav Galiev all scored. Mathieu Corbeil was excellent in goal and made 28 saves for the win.

Kirill Kabanov and Christophe Lalonde scored for Lewiston. Nicholas Champion allowed four goals on 22 shots through 40 minutes. Andrey Makarov came in in relief and stopped all seven shots he faced.

The Maineiacs should come out flying this evening with their season on the line. They had a pretty good start last night as well but the Sea Dogs were able to weather that storm and eventually pull ahead with some quick second period goals.

Saint John will also want to try and stay out of the box. The Dogs took three penalties in the third period alone and gave Lewiston a total of seven power plays on the night. Although they have yet to allow a man advantage goal against on the road in the post-season, that will likely catch up with them eventually.

If Lewiston wins, there will be a Game Five on Friday at Harbour Station. A Saint John win, and it’s off to the President’s Cup Finals for the second straight year.

He carried the Maineiacs to the semifinals, but goaltender Nicholas Champion has been pulled in both of his last two games after giving up four goals in each.

“I am going to sleep on this one and we will make a decision game-time tomorrow,” said Maineiacs head coach JF Houle to the Maine Hockey Journal. “I was really pleased with Makarov, but Nick Champion brought us to the semifinals. He has played very well for us.”

Champion has a record of 8-3-3-0 in the post-season with a goals against average of 2.97 and save percentage of 0.908. Rookie Andrey Makarov has yet to allow a goal in 47:28 of action.

Saint John will likely start Mathieu Corbeil who has been a major factor in this series. The 19-year old is 4-0-0-0 in the playoffs with a GAA of 0.94 and save percentage of 0.961.

The Saint John penalty killing unit held the MAINEiacs scoreless last night on seven power play opportunities. After lighting the lamp eleven times on the man advantage in round two against Montreal, Lewiston has been limited to just one power play goal in 16 chances against the Sea Dogs. With their performance in this series thus far, Saint John has now killed off 60 of 64 opposition power plays in 12 playoff games, giving them a 93.8% success rate.

CLOSING IT OUT
The Sea Dogs can go for the sweep tonight, something they have done just three times in the history of the franchise.

Saint John swept the PEI Rocket in Round One of the 2008 playoffs, swept the Gatineau Olympiques in Round Two of the 2010 playoffs, and just recently swept the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles in Round One.

When leading a series 3-0, the Sea Dogs are 3-0 in Game Four matches.

OTHER GAMES TONIGHT
Quebec at Gatineau - 7:30 PM EDT
The Remparts lead the series 2-1.